witenagemot

Our friend S. who is a talented oud-player, invited us to see his teacher, A's, oud factory in a village near Nablus. The factory makes various items of furniture as well as ouds. Some time ago and to supplement his income (oud pupils being scarce owing to the lack of money) A. went into partnership with U. a craftsman woodworker and they have both studied in Damascus in order to perfect their skills in oud-making.

It was a fascinating and very Palestinian day. First we had to meet S. at Huwarrah, go through the checkpoint and then wait for over an hour for him to get through himself (he is a young male). We sat with A, who is older, and an elderly woman joined us. She produced pictures of 2 young men - her sons, who were martyrs. This happened to us regularly in Palestine.

Once S. was able to join us we went to the workshop and watched U. and A. preparing the wood for the ouds. The wood is cut, soaked and curved and then glued into place on a frame to make the characteristic deep soundbox. Other workers were also making furniture and one young man spent several hours perfecting a bespoke replacement knob for a pressure-cooker - now there's posh! After lunch which was supplemented by bread fresh from the taboon (oven) in the farm next door - Mirian had been invited to watch the farmer's wife make it - S. and A. had a bit of a jam session. This was a treat, despite the heavy traffic thundering past the open workshop door on its way to the Awarta checkpoint to which all goods traffic to and from Nablus has to go in order to unload and reload their vehicles. Intermittently, throughout the day, U. had been engaged on his own project. He got one of the boys from the farm to find an olive log, and set to planing, cutting,carving and polishing. Here is the result, carved with our names and some very nice decoration:

While we were waiting for transport back, the boys from the farm took Mirian round the farm. They grow olives, beans (ful) and several kinds of vegetables, including tomatoes. After admiring the 'beit plastic' (polytunnel) and discussing the damage mistletoe does to almond trees (Palestinian mistletoe has red berries) a kind of joke developed around the huge amount of beans growing on the farm. 'Look Mariam - fuul' they kept saying as yet another patch was discovered under the olive trees, round the back of the lavatory and so on..... While we were laughing the children suddenly went quiet and stood still and we could here a strange, quite eerie, whistling sound. 'It's soldiers' said the children. The whistling is the village children's signal to each other that a jeep has been spotted. Sure enough about 10 seconds later a jeep went past where we were standing.

On our way back through Huwarra village, we noticed that all the shops were closed and the streets were empty. The taxi driver told us that a girl had been abducted by the IDF from the school and that the village had been placed under curfew. The traffic was allowed through on the main road, but army jeeps stationed every 50 yds or so kept a village of 6000 people prisoners in their homes all day - because of something the IDF had done. Collective punishment as pre-emptive retaliation.

Tales from the Old City

H., one of the volunteers in our project, lives in the old city. He appears to know everyone and is happy to show people round. We learned how to make hummus properly (you don't mix the olive oil in but pour it over the top and the secret ingredient is Seville orange juice (Zifr). H. also took us to see various well-known sites including the house flattened by an invading IDF tank in 2002. Ten people, including a pregnant woman, were buried alive and when rescuers were finally allowed access to the site, eight of them were dead. A nearby memorial commemmorates the victims as well as other local martyrs.

We also visited one of the few remaining soap factories. Nablus is famous for its olive oil soap but the industry has practically died owing to the occupation. The factory we visited was empty of all but a small amount of stock and had been trashed during its use by the IDF as a temporary outpost during the invasion of 2002. The owner has many plans and is attempting to develop new lines but it is difficult to be optimistic for him. Similarly, the 2 or 3 remaining Turkish baths (hammams) are deserted; nobody can afford such a luxury (about £3).

One business that is still managing to thrive is the sweet factory. Although it would probably give any Western Health and Safety officer nightmares and one might worry about the future dental health of Nablus citizens, it was good to see people busily working. We went out through the top of the old city, passing the apartments which are regularly used as sniping towers (see our earlier blog on the subject) and visited the Mother Theresa sisters who are running a day-centre/residential home for the disabled. The nuns, who are delightful, look after about 8 severely disabled young children. This is one of the few facilities in the area and the children were obviously being well cared-for and treated with love and resp

ect. H., (along with one of our students, another H.) were really taken with the children and promised to go back and see them, having overcome their shyness of visiting a convent!

Old City Gallery

The sweet factory - joy for some!

IDF battle-plan scrawled above the soap-factory sink

The deserted hammam

chickpeas, salt, chilli, lemon, Seville orange - guess what??

# posted by Witenagemot @ 6:42 AM

This is the sign which greets Arab travellers on the Jerusalem side of walled city of Bethlehem. (people on regular tour buses have a separate route). It hardly prepares you for the reality of the 'crossing' - the word Israel uses for the processing sheds which are to be found throughout Palestine. The 'Gilo Crossing' consists of a hangar containing several electronically-controlled turnstiles, steel-enclosed corridors and x-ray machines - all overseen from behind bullet-proof glass by young soldiers barking through microphones - and finally a wire tunnel running down the slope to the small knot of taxi drivers who wait in hope of a fare.

As you approach the shed you might spot the welcome message from the Israel Tourist Board. (Let nobody accuse them of a sense-of-humour deficit!) We visited Bethlehem on a Sunday - what should have been a popular day for visitors. What was noticeable was the large number of closed-up tourist shops and our taxi driver pointed out to us the tourist hotels which are all empty. According to him, tour buses come straight from West Jerusalem to Manger Square, offload the tourists for a quick visit to the Church of Nativity and whisk them back to 'safety' before they have chance to patronise the shops or cafes.

[An Ecumenical Accompanier told us that a Christian tourist friend of his was recently questioned at Ben Gurion airport.on his way home from Israel When he told the official he had visited Bethlehem, the official demanded to know how he had got there and WHO HAD TOLD HIM where to get the bus]

We tried to visit Hope Flowers School. This brave project was a plan to foster good relations between the 3 main religions by running a school for Jews, Muslims and Christians. As most of the Christians have now left Bethlehem and the Jews don't go there 'for security reasons', only a handful of Muslim children are left to attend the school. Its canteen was recently condemned along with many other buildings in the area. The reason? to make way for the expansion of the nearby colony. The hillside on which the school is situated is a depressing site - many demolished homes and a guntower presiding over the scene.

After the obligatory visit to the Church of the Nativity, we visited one of the two shops open. The Christian owner told us 'They (Israel) want us to pack our bags and leave. I don't want to pack my bags. This is my home and I will die here.' The pervading atmosphere in Bethlehem was despair and hopelessness. It was one of the most depressing experiences of our lives. If you consider that we'd just spent 9 weeks living and working in Nablus, this should tell you something. M. has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury to express our feelings and to urge him to take more of a lead in supporting the besieged Palestinians - Christian and Muslim - but we are not holding our breath.

PICTURED, ABOVE: As you leave Bethlehem, you can see the colony with its huge apartment blocks dominating the hillside next to Bethlehem.

Huwarra Checkpoint demonstration

We took part in what we believe is the first demonstration against the illegal checkpoints which are strangling Palestine. The Palestinian Body for Peace, Dialogue and Equality (HASM) has organised a series of peaceful demonstrations at Huwarra, which is notorious for the IDF's ill-treatment, humiliation and even killing of Palestinian citizens attempting to leave Nablus.

Red Indians in their Palestinian 'reservation' 14.1.07

Read more about the demonstration at:

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/01/14/huwwara-native-americans/

From our point of view, the demonstration was very successful. It was well-organised, peaceful and effective in that the soldiers backed off and after a short period, started allowing people to pass quickly through the 'cattle-sheds' under the gaze of International media who attended in respectable numbers. About 26 internationals, especially Ecumenical Accompaniers and Machsom Watch were present. A fellow-volunteer has made an excellent video in which the message that the only 'foreigners' present were the Israeli soldiers was made very clear, simply by asking the question 'Why are you here today?' of as many people as possible. Only the soldiers couldn't/wouldn't answer. Off-camera, some internationals did in fact manage to engage the soldiers in dialogue but their only answers when asked for their opinions ranged from 'I regret that it (the checkpoints) have to be this way but it's for security' to 'It's orders'. Maybe somebody needs to teach them some history e.g. the Nuremburg trials.

The mood of the demonstration was good-humoured and light-hearted, given the high stakes of confronting a group of possibly trigger-happy soldiers. Several young men dressed as Native Americans and there were placards making the parallels between Palestine and America clear - particularly appropriate as Condoleeza Rice was visiting Israel the same day. There was lots of singing and chanting and the weather stayed clear and even warm! We can only hope that the IDF respect the peaceful nature of the demonstrations and behave as responsibly next time.

A rural paradise?

We went to stay in Yanoun village for 4 days, to cover for the Ecumenical Accompaniers who were attending a meeting. Yanoun is a small village in an idyllic location at the top of a beautiful valley with a wadi (stream) and a fertile valley-floor which suppports wheat and vegetable-growing. The slopes of the surrounding hills are covered with olive and almond trees and shepherds lead their flocks of sheep and goats to graze on the lower slopes of the hills. If one sits in the village, the only sounds are the bells on the necks of the goats, the birds singing and the distant chanting of children in the village school. That is, until the loudest bang you've ever heard splinters the air and leaves you deaf - a sonic boom from an Israeli aeroplane flying past.

Yanoun found fame in 2002 when the violent intimidation of the villagers by members of the 3 outpost colonies which had sprouted around the head of the valley resulted in the almost total evacuation of the village. Israeli peace groups (Rabbis for Human Rights and Ta'yyoush) helped the villagers to reclaim their houses and since then the Ecumenical Accompaniers have lived in a house in the village at all times to protect the villagers.

Colony is an exact translation of the Arabic word Mustawtena. We feel that the word Settlement is not accurate, given the nature of the project involved. Israel tries to normalise the process of colonisation by referring to 'settlement municipal boundaries' - another example of the administrative 'ethnic cleansing' which, along with roadblocks, checkpoints, demolitions and incursions are effectively destroying any possibility of a viable Palestine. Although the colonisers above Yanoun do not, at the moment, shoot, beat or otherwise harass people (thanks to EA and other peace activists) the village is ridden with 'invisible boundaries'. 90% of the villagers' land has been stolen and the colonists are still taking more. The morning before we arrived, they had ploughed 2 more of the village fields, thus extending their boundary by another per-cent or 2. The flocks, which used to number in the 100s and include horses and cows are now reduced to 20-30 sheep and goats, only.

For more on Yanoun, visit www.eappi.org and follow the link to 'documents' - EAPPI Magazine, ChainReaction Issue 1: The EAPPI Confronting Violence with Presence

We passed a very pleasant 4 days in the village, chatting to people in our pidjin Arabic and eating the delicious freshly-made taboun (chapatti-like bread) which we were given by villagers.

It was very peaceful in Yanoun (sonic booms apart) but the village is watched constantly from the surrounding hills, day and night, courtesy of the powerful searchlights, and we found it impossible to relax. It was difficult to imagine what it must be like to live there permanently in these circumstances.

Nobody from Yanoun is corrected to the Intifada or has hurt a person from the Itamar colony.
Picture shows Yanoun children at play, 8.1.07

The future for Yanoun? 'If the internationals leave in the morning, then I will leave in the afternoon' - says one village woman.

The colonists have their own point of view and believe they have a God-given right to live in the hills of what they call Samaria: http://www.shechem.org/itamar/eindex.html.

When we were there we could understand why anyone might want to live there, it is so beautiful. But, as one Palestinian friend put it: 'For me, they can live here, and welcome, but they have to live with us, it is our country.'

We still have much to report but time has beaten us. This is our last day in Nablus. We are going to visit friends elsewhere and will post again once we arrive in Jerusalem.

Peace and love to everyone, Alan and Mirian

Postscript: Curfew

Huwarra village (pop. c 6000) was yesterday under an all-day curfew following the abduction by the IDF of a 16-year-old schoolgirl. Some villagers stoned a jeep in protest and we witnessed the result - empty streets and closed shops.. The main road along which we passed was patrolled by army jeeps. Breaking the curfew means you risk being shot, or at least, badly beaten and detained/arrested. We hope nobody in Huwarra dared to have a heart attack, accident or go into labour - if they did, they were out of luck.

Read about the IDF's ethical stance at: http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=32

Our Walk to Work

Join us on our walk from our apartment to our project office: First, we pass a hospital where 2 weeks ago, a wanted man was gunned down by an Israeli hit-squad in a fake ambulance. As he bled to death, hospital staff were forbidden, at gunpoint, to treat him. As you walk down the hill, you pass a martyr's shrine - destroyed overnight a couple of weeks ago by the IDF and a common occurence. As you walk down the main street past the Khuddrawat (fruit and veg market), you notice that the large civic building to the left is unoccupied and the glass in the windows broken. The roundabout in Martyr's Square is bare and wrecked (it used to be a pleasant place to sit with flowers and trees) and surrounding buildings are unkempt and down-trodden. In the whole of Nablus, you notice many closed shops.

Into the Old City's market; a place reminiscent of Jerusalem's old city with lovely old buildings and narrow, stall-crowded streets. As we approached the Al Nasser Mosque we noticed the usual large blocks of stone which locals use to try and barricade the streets from the nightly IDF incursions. Next to the roadblock there was a large hole in the Mosque wall and we could see right in to the tombs in the cemetery. Palestinians were passing and telling us what happened; on the usual pretext of 'looking for a terrorist' the Israelis had ram-raided the mosque and thus desecrated the cemetery.

On we go, past the bombed-flat soap-factory, and past a shrine to martyrs. What hits you is the youth of the faces on the posters which decorate the shrine. The Old City, which bears the scars of many gun-battles and explosions, is full of stories. One is the family whose house is nightly raided by the IDF who like to use their bedroom as a sniping post. It is very rare for their terrified children to get anything approaching a night's sleep.

We cross the road; there should be traffic lights to control the traffic but everytime the authority mends them, they are destroyed by the IDF - part of the ongoing undermining of the civil infrastructure. We pass a pile of rubble; it used to be an apartment block but the IDF decided, at Eid-al-Adha one year ago that a terrorist was hiding there. They gave the usual few minutes notice to the residents and then it was demolished, flat. The residents were forced to take refuge from the bitter cold in the boys' school nearby and all the people nearby had their windows blown in. They couldn't be replaced for several days because of the holiday.

We walk up the hill past the cemetery (there's always a small group of duty-mourners there for the most recent occupants) and to our office. For the first few weeks we were here, there was a huge patch of blood right by the gate. Nobody seemed to be able to tell us what happened, and it has now faded after the heavy rains. On the street below, the nephew of one of the project workers was executed some time ago, along with 4 other fighters. An eye-witness said the IDF killed them slowly by shooting them in all their limbs before finally finishing them off with an explosive bullet to the head. This ensures that the head is blown apart, making the victim unrecognisable and causing further anguish to his bereaved family as the face cannot be shown at the funeral, as is customary in Palestine.

A World Apart

Over New Year, we had a short break in Jerusalem and Israel. We visited Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev (Naqab Sahara) and En Gedi (En Jedi) by the Dead Sea. The Israeli bus service is excellent and reasonably-priced. Most of the buses we took had a large compliment of young armed soldiers going on and off weekend leave.

As you might expect, we met several very nice people. The Mitzpe Ramon police actually took us to our hotel because we were lost ('it's the Israeli police service') and people in the town made us welcome. Everyone wanted to know how we liked Israel and it was difficult to answer except on the most superficial level - 'It's very beautiful here etc.' Mitzpe Ramon is situated in a stony part of the desert, perched on the rim of a huge canyon. The views are spectacular and you can see across to the snow-capped peaks in Jordan. What is fairly disconcerting is the profligate use of water - lawns, trees and run-off from garden-watering. We asked our hostel-owner where Mitzpe's water was from - he replied 'They steal it from Galilee.'

En Gedi, noted for its spring water and walks was delightful. We stayed in the excellent Youth Hostel which was patronised by international tourists, Israeli Arabs and settlers who even at mealtimes could not be parted from their rifles. (Well, those pesky redskins could attack at any time, couldn't they?) We walked on one of the trails which, while steep and a little exposed, was a wonderful walk with stunning views across the sea to Jordan and the hills surrounding En Gedi. We arrived their in pouring rain and the next day the hostel staff thoroughly hosed down the whole hostel forecourt with more of that plentiful Galilee water.

Back in Jerusalem, we were again helped out by a really friendly man who picked us up in his truck (because we looked lost) and took us to a quiet post office. He even gave us some tourist information - 'go on the tour to the tunnels by the Western Wall - it's really good.' We didn't take him up on this: For anyone who doesn't know, Sharon's visit to the tunnels which go under the Haram al Sharif (Al Aqsa Mosque etc.) was the trigger for the 2000 Intifada which has so far cost 5000+ Palestinian and 1000+ Israeli lives and untold misery.

We could not help but speculate how many of these nice people really understand or accept (not including the settlers who are in the thick of the Occupation) what is being done in their name.

Music in Nablus

Over the last 6 weeks we have had the opportunity to listen to more (free) live music than we have in the previous year or so. Various musicians have visited the West Bank recently, some like the Belgian music group Ictus have been doing workshops with children in various locations and donating instruments and others, such as Daniel Barenboim have been appearing in solidarity with Palestine.

The standard has been universally excellent. Ictus, a flute, cello and harpsichord trio which we heard on Thursday were outstanding. We also heard musicians from the East-West Divan orchestra perform a baroque programme and an excellent guitar/clarinet French female duo. Our only misgiving is that the concerts are not well publicised and tend to be attended by a fairly exclusive audience of middle-class Palestinians and internationals. They do give rise to moments of amusement, however, such as the 'leg-crossing' incidents detailed in our last blog and the heroic harpsichord which seems to spend its time criss-crossing the the West Bank and getting 'pipped' at by Palestinian taxi drivers as it gets precariously carried across busy roads. The IDF have not confided in us its security rating but we understand it has not yet had to traverse the fields between Nablus and Jenin in its 20-foot box in order to avoid the road closures which affect all Palestinian traffic.

We have to close now as we have been told to go home immediately because Nablus has 'become dangerous'. More later.

Happy Christmas (again)

Today is the Eastern Orthodox Christmas. The dangerous situation referred to above is that the Al-Aqsa Brigades of the Fatah movement have apparently kidnapped the deputy mayor of Nablus, Ayman Hanbal, aged 24. A spokesperson of the “Army of Islam” said that his group will execute him if Hamas attacks the Daghmash family in the Gaza Strip. In a phone call with the Maan News Agency, Abu Sharar said that the group is holding Al Hanbali captive and that he is in a good health and is being treated properly. An Al Najah university lecturer, Dr. Marwan Qaddomi was also shot last night by unidentified gunmen.

Source: Maan News Agency 7.1.07

Meanwhile, from around 5am this morning, there were several massive explosions and the sounds of sporadic gunfire. At around 9am there was a huge explosion and a pall of smoke in the city. It took over 15 minutes to disperse and we have not yet identified the building concerned. It seems that Israeli forces invaded Nablus and arrested 8 citizens. It is understood that four of those detained are operatives of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed group of the Fatah movement. Eyewitnesses in Nablus stated that over 40 Israeli military vehicles and a bulldozer besieged the 15th and Ar-Razi streets in the south of the city. They added that Tariq Al-Faris, 20, from the northern mount of Nablus was also apprehended.

We were told to keep away from the office but the soldiers have now left and we have been able to come her to prepare for our classes. During the raid, the office building was invaded by 25-30 soldiers and the upper stories used as a gun-tower. All is now quiet and there is no obvious sign of damage to the building. However, a walk around the area soon revealed one of the morning's targets, a recently-completed apartment. Apparently nobody was hurt during the shooting but 5 civilians have been abducted by the IDF.

So, our next posting will be after we return from a village where we are substituting for EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniers) on 'settler watch' for 5 days. They are the Christian organisation we talked about in earlier postings and they have a conference to attend. The village cannot be left without an international presence because of the activities of the inhabitants of the 3 settler outposts.

Love and peace to everyone.

Well, nearly. Yesterday, the temperature plummetted and then the heavens opened. The rain, 2 months late, decided to come all at once. Last night the bangs and explosions came from the sky (a massive thunderstorm echoing around the hills) and today, bitterly cold, it snowed briefly.

Seasons Greetings to everyone and apologies for the non-appearance of this blog for so long. We have had a fairly hectic time and we don't have very easy access to the internet. Much has happened in the last 10 days so we'll give you a quick digest:

Checkpoints

On Sunday 24 December, Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert held a meeting after which it was announced that Israel intended to reduce the number of checkpoints in the West Bank by 59 'from about 400' at an unspecified date: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6208893.stm.

According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which monitors closures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, there were 539 closures on 12 December in the West Bank, an increase of 42% since August 2005. This represented a slight decrease from 540, earlier in the year.

On the same day, within hours of the above meeting, we travelled to Ramallah in order to hear Daniel Barenboim play the first book of Bach's 'Well Tempered Klavier' - a free concert in solidarity with Palestine. In order to travel between Nablus and Ramallah a journey of 50k, you have to go through Huwarrah checkpoint. This is situated at a large road junction and there is a prison, military base and several illegal settlements nearby. The checkpoint is permanent and, as usual, involves long waits as the Israelis make all males under 45 go through a turnstile, take off their coats, have their bags searched and then, from our observations, have their ID contemptously thrown back at them. Women, children, old men and Internationals are often allowed to queue separately. This line is (usually) less rigorous and resuts in large crowds of women on the other side of the checkpoint who have to wait for their menfolk, sometimes for hours. Vehicles are also checked, sometimes pulled to one side and searched and the wait is painfully slow.

On this occasion, no distinction was made between the 2 queues and we encountered about 500 Palestinians crushed into the checkpoint building (a large open-sided shed). There were several women with screaming babies in the queue and many frightened-looking children.

The 'Women's Queue' at Huwarra checkpoint - Christmas Eve, 2006

The 'women's queue' was inching forward at a painfully slow rate and everyone else was going nowhere which meant that people were pushing to try and get through. Several people reported to us that they had been there for more than 3 hours. From time to time, a soldier would vault the barrier and and try to make everyone go back. We told them that there was an easy way to ease the crush - just let people pass through. 'It's orders from the top' we were told by one soldier with a pronounced South African accent. After a while, the soldiers opened the gate between the two queues and everyone surged towards the one functioning gate. The soldiers appeared panicky and bunched together, fingering their automatic weapons nervously. This was quite scary. We shouted to the soldiers 'At least, let the women and babies out'. To our surprise, they concurred with this and a woman started to vault the barrier into the vehicle lane, still holding her baby. M. took the child from her and and passed it over the barrier, only to see her confronted with a hard-faced young girl soldier holding a Pit Bull terrier. We shouted 'tell your colleague to get that dog away from the women!' and again, they actually complied and girl and dog left the area. At this point, all the women in our vicinity with babies, were handing them to us Soldiers and dog bunch together as panic threatens

and climbing across the barrier in short order, after retrieving the babies. All this happened in silence and the women didn't look back, obviously very scared.

When we eventually got through, Machsom Watch were on the other side - they are not allowed into Area A (what are risibly called Palestinian-controlled zones) and we reported what had happened, they were asking us what we thought was going on: why was the checkpoint (even) worse than usual? None of us, of course, knew about Olmert's announcement at this point. The volunteer told us that Internationals can have more influence on the soldiers than they do. What little we achieved gave us no satisfaction; Palestinian men had been forced to watch foreigners getting 'their' women through and they could do nothing. Some of the midde-aged men were turned back for no apparent reason when they finally reached the soldiers. This, after a 3 or more-hour wait.

Screaming babies and scared women before they were finally allowed over the barrier

After we set off from the checkpoint, about 1/2 a kilometre up the road in Huwarra village, the Servis had to make for the olive groves as there was a flying checkpoint up ahead. On our return, we noticed another new checkpoint on the Bathan Road.

Now, here's the reality of the situation, an article published today - 27 December 2006: http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_21016.shtml Nablus is described by local media as being 'under siege'. The number of checkpoints have actually increased, as we have observed, since the meeting. For the last 2 days, local media and people report that the checkpoints are slower than usual. People are being forced to stand in the freezing cold and rain for long periods. Today, people will be trying to travel back to their villages to celebrate Eid al-Adha. Please tell people about what is going on here.

[We have just broken off because we were invited to partake of cake and sweets in the next room. Nablus is famed for its wonderful Kunafa - still being made, despite the 'situation' . Even a happy social occasion - to celebrate the successful publishing of a magazine produced by local children - evinced the following 2 comments as part of a general conversation: 'I hate Israeli soldiers - they killed my Dad' (young woman), 'They come in to Askar and shoot and arrest people every single night. It is terrible for children; they cannot sleep'] Askar camp resident. We hear stories like this, and worse, all the time.]

We also went through Bet Eiba checkpoint, on the West side of Nablus, last week. Although it was a 'quiet' day, we witnessed a distressing incident. A young woman was detained, strip-searched and then held in a holding pen. The reason? her name is the same as a man on a wanted list. Apparently this happens to her every time she passes through. After 90 minutes, the soldiers decided to accept that she wasn't a male terrorist and allowed her to leave. We stopped for a while because we decided to time an ambulance with emergency lights as it queued through the checkpoint. It took about 5 minutes; probably quite a good time, by checkpoint standards. We realised that there were Internationals there - this time, members of the Christian organisation Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAPPI). After a short while, Machsom Watch arrived; they are old friends these days. They are great company, witty and direct, and make absolutely no bones about the Occupation.

We are now in contact with 2 groups of EAPPI and we have agreed to cover for one group who are on 'settler watch' in a local village for 4 days in January while they travel to Jerusalem for a conference.

Christians in Palestine

In our opinion EAPPI and the Christian Peacemaker teams (Christians who refuse to 'pass by on the other side' - unlike the cowardly Archbiship of Canterbury) demonstrate a very positive image of Christianity and appear to be 'living the Gospel'. If only the modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees in the C of E and RC churches could show a bit more backbone, stand up to the Zionists in the UK and tell the truth.

Palestinian Christians appear from our observations to have enjoyed a 'normal' Christmas if you take into account that they are Arabs and subject to exactly the same treatment as Muslims by the IOF. Contrary to some very ugly rumours e.g. letters in the Church Times, Christians in Palestine are not persecuted by Muslims but by Israel. Hamas, reportedly, paid for the Christmas decorations in Gaza. Before Christmas, we attended a concert in a local church attended by many Muslims, all of whom behaved very respectfully, despite the attentions of a strange group of men in Scout uniform who patrolled the aisles telling off everyone who had their legs crossed. Apparently it is considered disrespectful to cross your legs in church here and it was mostly the ungodly Internationals who offended! All Palestinian children have the day off on 25 December, many Muslims celebrate Christmas and we have lost count of the number of people who have wished us 'Happy Christmas' and 'Happy Church'. We even got our lunch free today from the local shop.

To be continued.......

Jabal an-Nar (Hill of Fire) is a local name for Nablus.

Thursday 14 December, 2006: We awoke to louder than usual explosions and shooting in the early hours of this morning. The explanation?

'.. more than twenty Israeli military vehicles and two bulldozers broke into the city of Nablus on Thursday morning amid intense shooting. The Israeli soldiers patrolled the streets of the city and Balata refugee camp, where they arrested three Palestinians. A
further two Palestinians were arrested in Askar refugee camp, also in the city of Nablus'. MAAN NEWS AGENCY, Thursday 14 December, 2006.

Yesterday, 2 young men, friends of A., one of the local volunteers on our project, were kidnapped by Israeli forces from the University area of Nablus. We use this term because they are not criminals, not even members of any militia. Their distrait families know that they will not receive news of them for at least 48 hours and their ultimate fate is uncertain.

These incursions are routine, particularly in the refugee camps and the Old City. The University area is also targeted on the pretext that it is a gathering place for militants (true, but not exclusively) but it is also Israeli policy to disrupt the Palestinian education system wherever possible.

Pictured above, civil administration - Nablus. (Face-lift, courtesy of Israel, 2006)

H's story (H. is another local volunteer). When he was a boy of 16, 3 years ago, he was on his way to help in the family fields when he was seized by Israeli soldiers who asked him if he 'felt good'. He replied, 'Yes' whereupon they beat him with rifle butts and then asked him again. This time, he replied 'No'. They beat him again, blindfolded him, handcuffed him behind his back and took him up the hill and threw him in a disused water tank.
About 6 hours later, they released him.

W., one of our students told us that the reason you hardly ever see a police officer in Nablus is because the Israelis have promised to kill any they see. A breakdown in law-and-order would suit their purposes very well.

The ICAHD tour:

Two weekends ago we took part in one of the Israeli Committee against House Demolition's excellent tours. We were taken to Anata refugee camp in East Jerusalem and shown demolished houses and others earmarked for demolition. The tour guide explained to us the bureaucratic process which Israel is using to remove Arabs from this area (Apartheid by bureaucracy).





Palestinians have to prove that they have title to their property dating back to when Jordan administered Palestine, 1948-67. If they can't, which applies to most, the houses are liable to be demolished. It is possible to get building permission if you are able to get through about 7 stages of application and pay a colossal sum for a permit (about $20k). Israelis get subsidies to live in the illegal settlements. In the area we visited, the Bedouin residents were living in the camp pictured right - hardly the romantic place of popular imagination. Many more houses in the area were targeted for demolition. Anata is overlooked by an illegal Israeli settlement. For more information about the economic and bureaucratic ethnic cleansing of Palestine, visit ICAHD's web-site at www.icahd.org.

We were also taken to visit Ma'le Adumin, a settlement built on Palestinian land, greater in size than Tel Aviv. The contrast between life here and 'the other side' is grotesque - see the picture below. The institutional apartheid is evidenced in every aspect of life: the well-tended flowerbeds, the swimming pool, the huge malls, the immaculately laid pavements and freshly-painted kerbs, the lovely parks and playgrounds, the well-padded people and their shiny cars.

35% of the population of Jerusalem is Arab and they contribute 33% of the municipal budget via taxes. If they don't pay, they get evicted and their house demolished so they tend to be better payers than their Jewish neighbours. In return, they get 11% of the budget spent on their neighbourhoods. This is the reason that East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is scruffy (often described as 'chaotic', 'hectic', 'disorganised' in Zionist-friendly guide books). Even the bin-men don't call as often (if at all) resulting in the need to burn the rubbish in skips - a serious environmental hazard throughout the West Bank.

Abu Dis - this Arab village which is in Greater Jerusalem is divided by the apartheid wall. There have been many demonstrations here and our guide pointed out that even its supposed security features are an illusion. It is 24 feet high but any small boy or keen climber can scale it easily so it is now adorned with razor wire as well. On the Israeli side, as part of the 'normalisation' of the Occupation - and so they can get people to live in the settlements - the wall is attractively faced and landscaped so it is actually lower than on the Palestinian side and looks just like any wall you might see running alongside a major road.

A visit to Arab Israel

We went to visit a friend in Galilee. This involved a lengthy delay at the Bet Eiba checkpoint leaving Nablus. Alan stood in the crowded cattlepens in which the men under 45 have to stand and Mirian had the luxury of passing through the 'women, children and old men's' checkpoint which is marginally less de-humanising. She noticed 2 Jewish women taking notes. Recognising them as Machsom Watch, the Israeli organisation who monitor checkpoints, she introduced herself and passed a pleasant half hour until Alan was rumbled by the younger men, persuaded to abandon his act of solidarity and act his age! The women were bemoaning the apathy of Israeli society but on a positive note, told M that they now have upwards of 200 members. (ICAHD, also, report that they are getting high-level European and American visitors e.g. State Department on their tours).

The journey from Nablus to Jenin involves a 20-minute detour across fields to avoid a checkpoint. This route is a testament to the robustness of the Mercedes 'Servees' (estate car) and superb driving as it involves going over walls (honestly!) and through ditches. As usual, the Palestinians put up with this with their usual aplomb and humour.

The border crossing beyond Jenin involved a 25-minute wait in a cattle-pen with 3 other people, one of whom was a British Asian working for the Arab-American University. His treatment in the 'Security Vetting Area' (to get OUT of the West Bank) was peremptory and rude. Ours was just rude. The official concerned looked about 17, female and blew bubble gum while barking orders through a microphone behind re-inforced glass. The 'metal-detector' beeps even when you have removed everything remotely metal from your person including spectacles, gold rings, earrings; when M was on the point of offering to strip/remove her fillings and A was trying to stop himself asking which way to the showers, she waved us through with the machine still beeping. It is fairly obviously set to fail everyone so they can exclude whomever they choose, at whim - just like all the other checkpoints.

Once in Israel, we made our way to Nazareth (' an unattractive Arab town with a modern sector where Jews live' - Foders guide to Israel), actually a very charming, if huge town. The next day we arrived in Shefar'am to visit our friend who is head of a secondary school. The school was delightful; it was either Saint Barbara or Catherine's Day, according to who you asked, and we were pressed to eat a lot of sweet things. Alan had at this point been ill for 2 days and was fasting. We enjoyed seeing how the school worked - discipline is based on positive reinforcement and openness and we were impressed by the way both staff and students seemed really relaxed and cheerful; quite a contrast to the slightly edgy, stressful atmosphere in most British secondary schools we know. We also visited a Steiner kindergarten which is our friend's project and is run by Arab and Jewish staff. A lovely place and the children and staff were delightful. Shefar'am is notable for having the mosque, church and synagogue all close together in the centre of town.

Our friend took us on a couple of very interesting tours of Galilee. We went to Rosh Hanikra on the border with Lebanon. A. visited the caverns at the foot of the cliffs and saw a tourist film which re-inforced the Zionist version of local history. Several Israeli warships were patrolling the coast in the area.

We visited Akko, which is a famous historical site with amazing 33' high walls (now breached!!!!) and a hill from which Napoleon bombarded the town. Crusaders and British colonial types knew the town as Acre. The attractive old city is slowly being changed by compulsory purchase order from Arabic to Jewish. There are growing problems with drugs and alcoholism as people become separated from their livelihoods. We also visited the Sea of Galilee (alarmingly shrunken owing to the Israeli use of water to irrrigate the Negev among other projects) and recently cleaned up after environmentalists protested about the dumping of untreated sewage from the large town of Tiberias straight into it. Tiberias, which we passed through briefly, is a Jewish town and is very 'western' in character, including the size of the inhabitants and their almost universally uptight faces. This was quite a culture shock after a few weeks in Palestine: Palestinians, despite the constraints on their lives, are notable for their humour, liveliness and forbearance. They present, for the most part, as gracious, graceful and amazingly relaxed. People love a joke and are delighted if you join in with banter or good-natured teasing.

The Arab Israelis we met were delightful and welcoming. It was, however, disconcerting to realise that we appeared to know more about the plight of their compatriots on the West Bank than they did. There were even comments about Palestinian disorganisation which, given the current situation, we found quite shocking. We concluded that their attitudes are partly a reflection of the differences between 'lowland' and 'highland' peoples the world over and also, as second-class citizens in Israel, the need to keep their heads down. A Palestinian friend also pointed out to us that the all Israelis, including Arabs, are subject to unremitting Zionist and anti-Palestinian propaganda.

This (c. A2 size) poster was published originally in 1936 by the (Jewish) Tourist Development Agency! We like it and it's currently on our bedroom wall here in Nablus. If you want one we are thinking of getting a bulk order at cost price and getting PSC to sell them. Please let us know.

Alan's sickness was eventually diagnosed as a Genuine Palestinian Amoeba (E. holistica). He has decided to send it away and it is not going to be allowed the Right of Return.

Daily life and Work

We are now into our 2nd week of teaching. We have 2 regular classes (music workshops) in Balata camp and we teach english conversation/grammar to educated adults in Nablus. We will shortly be starting to work with some teenagers in an Old City youth club.

Our timetable is fairly light (afternoons only) but we are finding that it is enough. Even doing your shopping here takes a lot of time. Nablus is congested with taxis and shoppers up until nightfall at about 5pm, after which the city empties. You have to engage much more with people than is usual at home; a great bonus but it's a lengthy business. We love the Old City soukh and the vegetable market and we've already got into a bit of a routine with favourite stalls. The fruit and vegetables are good quality (some comes in from Israel and rather less goes out, of course). As Israel uses 80% of the West Bank's water, there is a need to conserve so we try to do our bit by washing our clothes in a bucket and saving all waste water to flush the loo.

Our classes are challenging but enjoyable. One music group started off at 20+ teenagers and now we have about 34 plus spectators and have to work in the yard, which fortunately gets the sun (it is getting pretty cold here, especially at night in our unheated apartment). At the moment we're working on chants, songs and games with some rhythm work. The other music group is smaller and we have enough instruments to go round so we work on rhythms and recorder-playing as well as singing. Both groups have been singing their songs to us, including a beautiful, wistful song about 'Al Qds' (Jerusalem) and a stirring patriotic song (from the teenagers).

The english class consists of 8 keen adults. In most cases their grammar and vocabulary are pretty good but they are desperately in need of conversation practice. The biggest hurdle is to wean them away from the present continuous tense but we're making progress.

For both kinds of teaching it's great to be a 'double act'.

Checkpoints

If you want to go anywhere out of Nablus you have to go through checkpoints. You have to stop, wait for the teenagers with the guns to decide to let you through, for minutes, hours, whatever their whim dictates. To get from here to a village called Sebastiye, 15 km away there are 3 checkpoints and any one of them can be closed any time (and frequently are). We have been asked to work there but it will have to be at a weekend because when volunteers have tried to work there during the day, they frequently get stuck there overnight.

More about checkpoints tomorrow......


A holy journey.

L. from New York visited Bethlehem and bought 2 olive-wood nativity scenes as presents for her family. They were huge with beautifully carved figurines of Mary, Joseph, animals, the 3 kings, shepherds and Baby Jesus in a manger. She paid so much for them that the shop owner cried when she handed over the money. As everyone knows, Bethlehem is a hotbed of terrorists. Well, it must be because it has been almost completely cut off from everywhere else and the tourist industry has been virtually destroyed.

Anyway, she wanted to post them to the US but they constituted a bin-bag full. Alan, who is an ace 'warehouser' managed to reduce them to several small boxes and together we carted them off to Jerusalem. L. assured us that Baby Jesus would take care of us and so he did. At Huwwara checkpoint, a Russian TV crew were filming proceedings and they asked us to comment on the situation which we were VERY GLAD to do!!! We were later assured that our comments would have been completely garbled in translation e.g. we think this security is entirely necesary, this has nothing to do with humiliation and ethnic cleansing, long live Zionism etc. Anyway their presence made the soldiers nervous so everyone - Palestinians and internationals were more-or-less waved through and off we went to do the ICAHD tour. Baby Jesus and the rest of the family were duly dispatched the next day much to L's and our relief.

Alan is sick at the moment with amoebas so I'm writing this in our freezing project office to the accompaniment of a drill. It's getting dark so I have to finish. Tomorrow, I'll post an update on ICAHD tour, our encounter with Machsom watch, and our visit to 'Arabic Israel' and there will be photos, insha'Allah.

p.s. continuing our film thread - we saw 'Cyrano de Bergerac' with Gerard Depardieu in fine bathetic form at the Centre Culturel Francaise de Naplouse. The english sub-titles were a bonus - they are usually in Arabic!

Love and peace,
M